ON the Monday before Thanksgiving, Presbury went up to New York to look
after one of the little speculations in Wall Street at which he was so
clever. Throughout the civilized world nowadays, and especially in and
near the great capitals of finance, there is a class of men and women
of small capital and of a character in which are combined iron
self-restraint, rabbit-like timidity, and great shrewdness, who make
often a not inconsiderable income by gambling in stocks. They buy only
when the market is advancing strongly; they sell as soon as they have
gained the scantest margin of profit. They never permit themselves to
be tempted by the most absolute certainty of larger gains. They will
let weeks, months even, go by without once risking a dollar. They wait
until they simply cannot lose. Tens of thousands every year try to
join this class. All but the few soon succumb to the hourly dazzling
temptations the big gamblers dangle before the eyes of the little
gamblers to lure them within reach of the merciless shears.
Presbury had for many years added from one to ten thousand a year to
his income by this form of gambling, success at which is in itself
sufficient to stamp a man as infinitely little of soul. On that Monday
he, venturing for the first time in six months, returned to Hanging
Rock on the three-thirty train the richer by two hundred and fifty
dollars--as large a "killing" as he had ever made in any single day,
one large enough to elevate him to the rank of prince among the
"sure-thing snides." He said nothing about his luck to his family, but
let them attribute his unprecedented good humor to the news he brought
and announced at dinner.
"I met an old friend in the street this afternoon," said he. "He has
invited us to take Thanksgiving dinner with him. And I think it will
be a dinner worth while--the food, I mean, and the wine. Not the
guests; for there won't be any guests but us. General Siddall is a
stranger in New York."
"There are Siddalls in New York," said his wife; "very nice, refined
people--going in the best society."
Presbury showed his false teeth in a genial smile; for the
old-fashioned or plate kind of false teeth they were extraordinarily
good--when exactly in place. "But not my old friend Bill Siddall,"
said he. "He's next door to an outlaw. I'd not have accepted his
invitation if he had been asking us to dine in public. But this is to
be at his own house--his new house--and a very grand house it is,
judging by the photos he showed me. A regular palace! He'll not be an
outlaw long, I guess. But we must wait and see how he comes out
socially before we commit ourselves."
"Did you accept for me, too?" asked Mrs. Presbury.
"Certainly," said Presbury. "And for your daughter, too."
"I can't go," said Mildred. "I'm dining with the Fassetts."
The family no longer had a servant in constant attendance in the
dining-room. The maid of many functions also acted as butler and as
fetch-and-carry between kitchen and butler's pantry. Before speaking,
Presbury waited until this maid had withdrawn to bring the roast and
the vegetables. Then he said:
"You are going, too, miss." This with the full infusion of insult into
the "miss."
Mildred was silent.
"Bill Siddall is looking for a wife," proceeded Presbury. "And he has
Heaven knows how many millions."
"Do you think there's a chance for Milly?" cried Mrs. Presbury, who was
full of alternating hopes and fears, both wholly irrational.
"She can have him--if she wants him," replied Presbury. "But it's only
fair to warn her that he's a stiff dose."
"Is the money--CERTAIN?" inquired Mildred's mother with that shrewdness
whose rare occasional displays laid her open to the unjust suspicion of
feigning her habitual stupidity.
"Yes," said Presbury amiably. "It's nothing like yours was. He's so
rich he doesn't know what to do with his income. He owns mines
scattered all over the world. And if they all failed, he's got bundles
of railway stocks and bonds, and gilt-edged trust stocks, too. And he's
a comparatively young man--hardly fifty, I should say. He pretends to
be forty."
"It's strange I never heard of him," said Mrs. Presbury.
"If you went to South America or South Africa or Alaska, you'd hear of
him," said Presbury. He laughed. "And I guess you'd hear some pretty
dreadful things. When I knew him twenty-five years ago he had just been
arrested for forging my father's name to a check. But he got out of
that--and it's all past and gone. Probably he hasn't committed any
worse crimes than have most of our big rich men. Bill's handicap has
been that he hadn't much education or any swell relatives. But he's a
genius at money-making." Presbury looked at Mildred with a grin. "And
he's just the husband for Mildred. She can't afford to be too
particular. Somebody's got to support her. _I_ can't and won't, and
she can't support herself."
"You'll go--won't you, Mildred?" said her mother. "He may not be so
bad."
"Yes, I'll go," said Mildred. Her gaze was upon the untouched food on
her plate.
"Of course she'll go," said Presbury. "And she'll marry him if she
can. Won't you, miss?"
He spoke in his amiably insulting way--as distinguished from the way of
savagely sneering insult he usually took with her. He expected no
reply. She surprised him. She lifted her tragic eyes and looked
fixedly at him. She said:
"Yes, I'll go. And I'll marry him if I can."
"I told him he could have you," said Presbury. "I explained to him
that you were a rare specimen of the perfect lady--just what he
wanted--and that you, and all your family, would be grateful to anybody
who would undertake your support."
Mrs. Presbury flushed angrily. "You've made it perfectly useless for
her to go!" she cried.
"Calm yourself, my love," said her husband. "I know Bill Siddall
thoroughly. I said what would help. I want to get rid of her as much
as you do--and that's saying a great deal."
Mrs. Presbury flamed with the wrath of those who are justly accused.
"If Mildred left, I should go, too," cried she.
"Go where?" inquired her husband. "To the poorhouse?"
By persistent rubbing in Presbury had succeeded in making the truth
about her poverty and dependence clear to his wife. She continued to
frown and to look unutterable contempt, but he had silenced her. He
noted this with a sort of satisfaction and went on:
"If Bill Siddall takes her, you certainly won't go there. He wouldn't
have you. He feels strongly on the subject of mothers-in-law."
"Has he been married before?" asked Mrs. Presbury.
"Twice," replied her husband. "His first wife died. He divorced the
second for unfaithfulness."
Mildred saw in this painstaking recital of all the disagreeable and
repellent facts about Siddall an effort further to humiliate her by
making it apparent how desperately off she was, how she could not
refuse any offer, revolting though it might be to her pride and to her
womanly instincts. Doubtless this was in part the explanation of
Presbury's malicious candor. But an element in that candor was a
prudent preparing of the girl's mind for worse than the reality. That
he was in earnest in his profession of a desire to bring about the
match showed when he proposed that they should take rooms at a hotel in
New York, to give her a chance to dress properly for the dinner. True,
he hastened to say that the expense must be met altogether out of the
remnant of Mildred's share of her father's estate, but the idea would
not have occurred to him had he not been really planning a marriage.
Never had Mildred looked more beautiful or more attractive than when
the three were ready to sally forth from the Manhattan Hotel on that
Thanksgiving evening. At twenty-five, a soundly healthy and vigorous
twenty-five, it is impossible for mind and nerves, however wrought
upon, to make serious inroads upon surface charms. The hope of
emancipation from her hideous slavery had been acting upon the girl
like a powerful tonic. She had gained several pounds in the three
intervening days; her face had filled out, color had come back in all
its former beauty to her lips. Perhaps there was some slight aid from
art in the extraordinary brilliancy of her eyes.
Presbury inventoried her with a succession of grunts of satisfaction.
"Yes, he'll want you," he said. "You'll strike him as just the show
piece he needs. And he's too shrewd not to be aware that his choice is
limited."
"You can't frighten me," said Mildred, with a radiant, coquettish
smile--for practice. "Nothing could frighten me."
"I'm not trying," replied Presbury. "Nor will Siddall frighten you. A
woman who's after a bill-payer can stomach anything."
"Or a man," said Mildred.
"Oh, your mother wasn't as bad as all that," said Presbury, who never
lost an opportunity.
Mrs. Presbury, seated beside her daughter in the cab, gave an
exclamation of rage. "My own daughter insulting me!" she said.
"Such a thought did not enter my head," protested Mildred. "I wasn't
thinking of anyone in particular."
"Let's not quarrel now," said Presbury, with unprecedented amiability.
"We must give Bill a spectacle of the happy family."
The cab entered the porte-cochere of a huge palace of white stone just
off Fifth Avenue. The house was even grander than they had
anticipated. The wrought-iron fence around it had cost a small
fortune; the house itself, without reference to its contents, a large
fortune. The massive outer doors were opened by two lackeys in
cherry-colored silk and velvet livery; a butler, looking like an
English gentleman, was waiting to receive them at the top of a short
flight of marble steps between the outer and the inner entrance doors.
As Mildred ascended, she happened to note the sculpturing over the
inner entrance--a reclining nude figure of a woman, Cupids with
garlands and hymeneal torches hovering about her.
Mildred had been in many pretentious houses in and near New York, but
this far surpassed the grandest of them. Everything was brand new,
seemed to have been only that moment placed, and was of the
costliest--statuary, carpets, armor, carved seats of stone and wood,
marble staircase rising majestically, tapestries, pictures,
drawing-room furniture. The hall was vast, but the drawing-room was
vaster. Empty, one would have said that it could not possibly be
furnished. Yet it was not only full, but crowded-chairs and sofas,
hassocks and tete-a-tetes, cabinets, tables, pictures, statues, busts,
palms, flowers, a mighty fireplace in which, behind enormous and costly
andirons, crackled enormous and costly logs. There was danger in
moving about; one could not be sure of not upsetting something, and one
felt that the least damage that could be done there would be an
appallingly expensive matter.
Before that cavernous fireplace posed General Siddall. He was a tiny
mite of a man with a thin wiry body supporting the head of a
professional barber. His black hair was glossy and most romantically
arranged. His black mustache and imperial were waxed and
brilliantined. There was no mistaking the liberal use of dye, also.
From the rather thin, very sharp face looked a pair of small, muddy,
brown-green eyes--dull, crafty, cold, cruel. But the little man was so
insignificant and so bebarbered and betailored that one could not take
him seriously. Never had there been so new, so carefully pressed, so
perfectly fitting evening clothes; never a shirt so expensively got
together, or jeweled studs, waistcoat buttons and links so high priced.
From every part of the room, from every part of the little man's
perfumed and groomed person, every individual article seemed to be
shrieking, "The best is not too good for Bill Siddall!"
Mildred was agreeably surprised--she was looking with fierce
determination for agreeable surprises--when the costly little man
spoke, in a quiet, pleasant voice with an elusive, attractive foreign
accent.
"My, but this is grand--grand, General Siddall!" said Presbury in the
voice of the noisy flatterer. "Princely! Royal!"
Mildred glanced nervously at Siddall. She feared that Presbury had
taken the wrong tone. She saw in the unpleasant eyes a glance of
gratified vanity. Said he:
"Not so bad, not so bad. I saw the house in Paris, when I was taking a
walk one day. I went to the American ambassador and asked for the best
architect in Paris. I went to him, told him about the house--and here
it is."
"Decorations, furniture, and all!" exclaimed Presbury.
"No, just the house. I picked up the interiors in different parts of
Europe--had everything reproduced where I couldn't buy outright. I
want to enjoy my money while I'm still young. I didn't care what it
cost to get the proper surroundings. As I said to my architect and to
my staff of artists, I expected to be cheated, but I wanted the goods.
And I got the goods. I'll show you through the house after dinner.
It's on this same scale throughout. And they're putting me together a
country place--same sort of thing." He threw back his little shoulders
and protruded his little chest. "And the joke of it is that the whole
business isn't costing me a cent."
"Not a cent less than half a dozen or a dozen millions," said Presbury.
"Not so much as that--not quite," protested the delightedly sparkling
little general. "But what I meant was that, as fast as these fellows
spend, I go down-town and make. Fact is, I'm a little better off than
I was when I started in to build."
"Well, you didn't get any of MY money," laughed Presbury. "But I
suppose pretty much everybody else in the country must have
contributed."
General Siddall smiled. Mildred wondered whether the points of his
mustache and imperial would crack and break of, if he should touch
them. She noted that his hair was roached absurdly high above the
middle of his forehead and that he was wearing the tallest heels she
had ever seen. She calculated that, with his hair flat and his feet on
the ground, he would hardly come to her shoulder--and she was barely of
woman's medium height. She caught sight of his hands--the square,
stubby hands of a working man; the fingers permanently slightly curved
as by the handle of shovel and pick; the skin shriveled but white with
a ghastly, sickening bleached white, the nails repulsively manicured
into long white curves. "If he should touch me, I'd scream," she
thought. And then she looked at Presbury--and around her at the
evidences of enormous wealth.
The general--she wondered where he had got that title--led her mother
in to dinner, Presbury gave her his arm. On the way he found
opportunity to mutter:
"Lay it on thick! Flatter the fool. You can't offend him. Tell him
he's divinely handsome--a Louis Fourteen, a Napoleon. Praise
everything--napkins, tablecloth, dishes, food. Rave over the wine."
But Mildred could not adopt this obviously excellent advice. She sat
silent and cold, while Presbury and her mother raved and drew out the
general to talk of himself--the only subject in the whole world that
seemed to him thoroughly worth while. As Mildred listened and
furtively observed, it seemed to her that this tiny fool, so obviously
pleased by these coarse and insulting flatteries, could not possibly
have had the brains to amass the vast fortune he apparently possessed.
But presently she noted that behind the personality that was pleased by
this gross fawning and bootlicking there lay--lay in wait and on
guard--another personality, one that despised these guests of his,
estimating them at their true value and using them contemptuously for
the gratification of his coarse appetites. In the glimpse she caught
of that deeper and real personality, she liked it even less than she
liked the one upon the surface.
It was evidence of superior acumen that she saw even vaguely the real
Bill Siddall, the money-maker, beneath the General William Siddall, raw
and ignorant and vulgar--more vulgar in his refinement than the most
shocking bum at home and at ease in foul-smelling stew. Every man of
achievement hides beneath his surface--personality this second and real
man, who makes the fortune, discovers the secret of chemistry, fights
the battle, carries the election, paints the picture, commits the
frightful murder, evolves the divine sermon or poem or symphony. Thus,
when we meet a man of achievement, we invariably have a sense of
disappointment. "Why, that's not the man!" we exclaim. "There must be
some mistake." And it is, indeed, not the man. Him we are incapable of
seeing. We have only eyes for surfaces; and, not being doers of
extraordinary deeds, but mere plodders in the routines of existence, we
cannot believe that there is any more to another than there is to
ourselves. The pleasant or unpleasant surface for the conventional
relations of life is about all there is to us; therefore it is all
there is to human nature. Well, there's no help for it. In measuring
our fellow beings we can use only the measurements of our own selves;
we have no others, and if others are given to us we are as foozled as
one knowing only feet and inches who has a tape marked off in meters
and centimeters.
It so happened that in her social excursions Mildred had never been in
any of the numerous homes of the suddenly and vastly rich of humble
origin. She was used to--and regarded as proper and elegant--the
ordinary ostentations and crudities of the rich of conventional
society. No more than you or I was she moved to ridicule or disdain by
the silliness and the tawdry vulgarity of the life of palace and
liveried lackey and empty ceremonial, by the tedious entertainments, by
the displays of costly and poisonous food. But General Siddall's
establishment presented a new phase to her--and she thought it unique
in dreadfulness and absurdity.
The general had had a home life in his youth--in a coal-miner's cabin
near Wilkes-Barre. Ever since, he had lived in boarding-houses or
hotels. As his shrewd and rapacious mind had gathered in more and more
wealth, he had lived more and more luxuriously--but always at hotels.
He had seen little of the private life of the rich. Thus he had been
compelled to get his ideas of luxury and of ceremonial altogether from
the hotel-keepers and caterers who give the rich what the more
intelligent and informed of the rich are usually shamed by people of
taste from giving themselves at home.
She thought the tablecloth, napkins, and gaudy gold and flowery cut
glass a little overdone, but on the whole not so bad. She had seen
such almost as grand at a few New York houses. The lace in the cloth
and in the napkins was merely a little too magnificent. It made the
table lumpy, it made the napkins unfit for use. But the way the dinner
was served! You would have said you were in a glorified palace-hotel
restaurant. You looked about for the cashier's desk; you were certain a
bill would be presented after the last course.
The general, tinier and more grotesque than ever in the great
high-backed, richly carved armchair, surveyed the progress of the
banquet with the air of a god performing miracles of creation and
passing them in review and giving them his divine endorsement. He was
well pleased with the enthusiastic praises Presbury and his wife
lavished upon the food and drink. He would have been better pleased
had they preceded and followed every mouthful with a eulogy. He
supplemented their compliments with even more fulsome compliments,
adding details as to the origin and the cost.
"Darcy"--this to the butler--"tell the chef that this fish is the best
yet--really exquisite." To Presbury: "I had it brought over from
France--alive, of course. We have many excellent fish, but I like a
change now and then. So I have a standing order with Prunier--he's the
big oyster- and fish-man of Paris--to send me over some things every
two weeks by special express. That way, an oyster costs about fifty
cents and a fish about five or six dollars."
To Mrs. Presbury: "I'll have Darcy make you and Miss Presbury--excuse
me, Miss Gower--bouquets of the flowers afterward. Most of them come
from New York--and very high really first-class flowers are. I pay two
dollars apiece for my roses even at this season. And orchids--well, I
feel really extravagant when I indulge in orchids as I have this
evening. Ten dollars apiece for those. But they're worth it."
The dinner was interminably long--upward of twenty kinds of food, no
less than five kinds of wine; enough served and spoiled to have fed and
intoxicated a dozen people at least. And upon every item of food and
drink the general had some remarks to make. He impressed it upon his
guests that this dinner was very little better than the one served to
him every night, that the increase in expense and luxury was not in
their honor, but in his own--to show them what he could do when he
wished to make a holiday. Finally the grand course was reached. Into
the dining-room, to the amazement of the guests, were rolled two great
restaurant joint wagons. Instead of being made of silver-plated nickel
or plain nickel they were of silver embossed with gold, and the large
carvers and serving-spoons and forks had gold-mounted silver handles.
When the lackeys turned back the covers there were disclosed several
truly wonderful young turkeys, fattened as if by painstaking and
skillful hand and superbly browned.
Up to that time the rich and costly food had been sadly medium--like
the wines. But these turkeys were a genuine triumph. Even Mildred
gave them a look of interest and admiration. In a voice that made
General Siddall ecstatic Presbury cried:
"GOD bless my soul! WHERE did you get those beauties, old man!"
"Paris," said Siddall in a voice tremulous with pride and
self-admiration. You would have thought that he had created not merely
the turkeys, but Paris, also. "Potin sends them over to me. Potin, you
know, is the finest dealer in groceries, fruit, game, and so on in the
world. I have a standing order with him for the best of--everything
that comes in. I'd hate to tell you what my bill with Potin is every
month--he only sends it to me once a year. Really, I think I ought to
be ashamed of myself, but I reason that, if a man can afford it, he's a
fool to put anything but the best into his stomach."
"You're right there!" mumbled Presbury. His mouth was full of turkey.
"You HAVE got a chef, General!"
"He ought to cook well. I pay him more than most bank-presidents get.
What do you think of those joint wagons, Mrs. Presbury?"
"They're very--interesting," replied she, a little nervous because she
suspected they were some sort of vulgar joke.
"I knew you'd like them," said the general. "My own idea entirely. I
saw them in several restaurants abroad--only of course those they had
were just ordinary affairs, not fit to be introduced into a gentleman's
dining-room. But I took the idea and adapted it to my purposes--and
there you are!"
"Very original, old man," said Presbury, who had been drinking too
much. "I've never seen it before, and I don't think I ever shall
again. Got the idea patented?"
But Siddall in his soberest moment would have been slow to admit a
suspicion that any of the human race, which he regarded as on its knees
before him, was venturing to poke fun at him. Drunk as he now was, the
openest sarcasm would have been accepted as a compliment. After a
gorgeous dessert which nobody more than touched--a molded mousse of
whipped and frozen cream and strawberries--"specially sent on to me
from Florida and costing me a dollar apiece, I guess"--after this
costly wonder had disappeared fruit was served. General Siddall had
ready a long oration upon this course. He delivered it in a
disgustingly thick tone. The pineapple was an English hothouse product,
the grapes were grown by a costly process under glass in Belgium. As
for the peaches, Potin had sent those delicately blushing marvels, and
the charge for this would be "not less than a louis apiece, sir--a
louis d'or--which, as you no doubt know, is about four dollars of Uncle
Sam's money."
The coffee--"the Queen of Holland may have it on her PRIVATE
table--MAY, I say--but I doubt if anyone else in the world gets a smell
of it except me"--the coffee and the brandy came not a moment too soon.
Presbury was becoming stupefied with indigestion; his wife was nodding
and was wearing that vague, forced, pleasant smile which stands
propriety-guard over a mind asleep; Mildred Gower felt that her nerves
would endure no more; and the general was falling into a besotted
state, spilling his wine, mumbling his words. The coffee and the brandy
revived them all somewhat. Mildred, lifting her eyes, saw by way of a
mirrored section of the enormous sideboard the English butler surveying
master and guests with slowly moving, sneering glance of ineffable
contempt.
In the drawing-room again Mildred, requested by Siddall and ordered by
Presbury, sang a little French song and then--at the urging of
Siddall--"Annie Laurie." Siddall was wiping his eyes when she turned
around. He said to Presbury:
"Take your wife into the conservatory to look at my orchids. I want to
say a word to your stepdaughter."
Mildred started up nervously. She saw how drunk the general was, saw
the expression of his face that a woman has to be innocent indeed not
to understand. She was afraid to be left alone with him. Presbury came
up to her, said rapidly, in a low tone:
"It's all right. He's got a high sense of what's due a respectable
woman of our class. He isn't as drunk as he looks and acts."
Having said which, he took his wife by the arm and pushed her into the
adjoining conservatory. Mildred reseated herself upon the inlaid
piano-bench. The little man, his face now shiny with the sweat of
drink and emotion, drew up a chair in front of her. He sat--and he was
almost as tall sitting as standing. He said graciously:
"Don't be afraid, my dear girl. I'm not that dangerous."
She lifted her eyes and looked at him. She tried to conceal her
aversion; she feared she was not succeeding. But she need not have
concerned herself about that. General Siddall, after the manner of very
rich men, could not conceive of anyone being less impressed with his
superiority in any way than he himself was. For years he had heard
only flatteries of himself--his own voice singing his praises, the
fawning voices of those he hired and of those hoping to get some
financial advantage. He could not have imagined a mere woman not being
overwhelmed by the prospect of his courting her. Nor would it have
entered his head that his money would be the chief, much less the only,
consideration with her. He had long since lost all point of view, and
believed that the adulation paid his wealth was evoked by his charms of
person, mind, and manner. Those who imagine this was evidence of folly
and weak-mindedness and extraordinary vanity show how little they know
human nature. The strongest head could not remain steady, the most
accurate eyes could not retain their measuring skill, in such an
environment as always completely envelops wealth and power. And the
much-talked-of difference between those born to wealth and power and
those who rise to it from obscurity resolves itself to little more than
the difference between those born mad and those who go insane.
Looking at the little man with the disagreeable eyes, so dull yet so
shrewd, Mildred saw that within the drunkard who could scarcely sit
straight upon the richly upholstered and carved gilt chair there was
another person, coldly sober, calmly calculating. And she realized
that it was this person with whom she was about to have the most
serious conversation of her life thus far.
The drunkard smiled with a repulsive wiping and smacking of the thin,
sensual lips. "I suppose you know why I had you brought here this
evening?" said he.
Mildred looked and waited.
"I didn't intend to say anything to-night. In fact, I didn't expect to
find in you what I've been looking for. I thought that old fool of a
stepfather of yours was cracking up his goods beyond their merits. But
he wasn't. My dear, you suit me from the ground up. I've been looking
you over carefully. You were made for the place I want to fill."
Mildred had lowered her eyes. Her face had become deathly pale. "I
feel faint," she murmured. "It is very warm here."
"You're not sickly?" inquired the general sharply. "You look like a
good solid woman--thin but wiry. Ever been sick? I must look into your
health. That's a point on which I must be satisfied."
A wave of anger swept through her, restoring her strength. She was
about to speak--a rebuke to his colossal impudence that he would not
soon forget. Then she remembered, and bit her lips.
"I don't ask you to decide to-night," pursued he, hastening to explain
this concession by adding: "I don't intend to decide, myself. All I
say is that I am willing--if the goods are up to the sample."
Mildred saw her stepfather and her mother watching from just within the
conservatory door. A movement of the portiere at the door into the
hall let her know that Darcy, the butler, was peeping and listening
there. She stood up, clenched her hands, struck them together, struck
them against her temples, crossed the room swiftly, flung herself down
upon a sofa, and burst into tears. Presbury and his wife entered.
Siddall was standing, looking after Mildred with a grin. He winked at
Presbury and said:
"I guess we gave her too much of that wine. It's all old and stronger
than you'd think."
"My daughter hardly touched her glasses," cried Mrs. Presbury.
"I know that, ma'am," replied Siddall. "I watched her. If she'd done
much drinking, I'd have been done, then and there."
"I suspect she's upset by what you've been saying, General," said
Presbury. "Wasn't it enough to upset a girl? You don't realize how
magnificent you are--how magnificent everything is here."
"I'm sorry if I upset her," said the general, swelling and loftily
contrite. "I don t know why it is that people never seem to be able to
act natural with me." He hated those who did, regarding them as
sodden, unappreciative fools.
Mrs. Presbury was quieting her daughter. Presbury and Siddall lighted
cigars and went into the smoking--and billiard-room across the hall.
Said Presbury:
"I didn't deceive you, did I, General?"
"She's entirely satisfactory," replied Siddall. "I'm going to make
careful inquiries about her character and her health. If those things
prove to be all right I'm ready to go ahead."
"Then the thing's settled," said Presbury. "She's all that a lady
should be. And except a cold now and then she never has anything the
matter with her. She comes of good healthy stock."
"I can't stand a sickly, ailing woman," said Siddall. "I wouldn't marry
one, and if one I married turned out to be that kind, I'd make short
work of her. When you get right down to facts, what is a woman? Why,
a body. If she ain't pretty and well, she ain't nothing. While I'm
looking up her pedigree, so to speak, I want you to get her mother to
explain to her just what kind of a man I am."
"Certainly, certainly," said Presbury.
"Have her told that I don't put up with foolishness. If she wants to
look at a man, let her look at me."
"You'll have no trouble in that way," said Presbury.
"I DID have trouble in that way," replied the general sourly. "Women
are fools--ALL women. But the principal trouble with the second Mrs.
Siddall was that she wasn't a lady born."
"That's why I say you'll have no trouble," said Presbury.
"Well, I want her mother to talk to her plainer than a gentleman can
talk to a young lady. I want her to understand that I am marrying so
that I can have a WIFE--cheerful, ready, and healthy. I'll not put up
with foolishness of any kind."
"I understand," said Presbury. "You'll find that she'll meet all your
conditions."
"Explain to her that, while I'm the easiest, most liberal-spending man
in the world when I'm getting what I want, I am just the opposite when
I'm not getting what I pay for. If I take her and if she acts right,
she'll have more of everything that women want than any woman in the
world. I'd take a pride in my wife. There isn't anything I wouldn't
spend in showing her off to advantage. And I'm willing to be liberal
with her mother, too."
Presbury had been hoping for this. His eyes sparkled. "You're a
prince, General," he said. "A genuine prince. You know how to do
things right."
"I flatter myself I do," said the general. "I've been up and down the
world, and I tell you most of the kings live cheap beside me. And when
I get a wife worth showing of, I'll do still better. I've got
wonderful creative ability. There isn't anything I can't and won't
buy."
Presbury noted uneasily how cold and straight, how obviously repelled
and repelling the girl was as she yielded her fingers to Siddall at the
leave-taking. He and her mother covered the silence and ice with hot
and voluble sycophantry. They might have spared themselves the
exertion. To Siddall Mildred was at her most fascinating when she was
thus "the lady and the queen." The final impression she made upon him
was the most favorable of all.
In the cab Mrs. Presbury talked out of the fullness of an overflowing
heart. "What a remarkable man the general is!" said she. "You've only
to look at him to realize that you're in the presence of a really
superior person. And what tact he has!--and how generous he is!--and
how beautifully he entertains! So much dignity--so much simplicity--so
much--"
"Fiddlesticks!" interrupted Presbury. "Your daughter isn't a damn
fool, Mrs. Presbury."
Mildred gave a short, dry laugh.
Up flared her mother. "I mean every word I said!" cried she. "If I
hadn't admired and appreciated him, I'd certainly not have acted as I
did. _I_ couldn't stoop to such hypocrisy."
"Fiddlesticks!" sneered Presbury. "Bill Siddall is a horror. His
house is a horror. His dinner was a horror. These loathsome rich
people! They're ruining the world--as they always have. They're
making it impossible for anyone to get good service or good food or
good furniture or good clothing or good anything. They don't know good
things, and they pay exorbitant prices for showy trash, for crude
vulgar luxury. They corrupt taste. They make everyone round them or
near them sycophants and cheats. They substitute money for
intelligence and discrimination. They degrade every fine thing in life.
Civilization is built up by brains and hard work, and along come the
rich and rot and ruin it!"
Mildred and her mother were listening in astonishment. Said the mother:
"I'd be ashamed to confess myself such a hypocrite."
"And I, madam, would be ashamed to be such a hypocrite without taking a
bath of confession afterward," retorted Presbury.
"At least you might have waited until Mildred wasn't in hearing,"
snapped she.
"I shall marry him if I can," said Mildred.
"And blissfully happy you'll be," said Presbury. "Women, ladies--true
ladies, like you and your mother--have no sensibilities. All you ask
is luxury. If Bill Siddall were a thousand times worse than he is, his
money would buy him almost any refined, delicate lady anywhere in
Christendom."
Mrs. Presbury laughed angrily. "YOU, talking like this--you of all
men. Is there anything YOU wouldn't stoop to for money?"
"Do you think I laid myself open to that charge by marrying you?" said
Presbury, made cheerful despite his savage indigestion by the
opportunity for effective insult she had given him and he had promptly
seized. "I am far too gallant to agree with you. But I'm also too
gallant to contradict a lady. By the way, you must be careful in
dealing with Siddall. Rich people like to be fawned on, but not to be
slobbered on. You went entirely too far."
Mrs. Presbury, whom indigestion had rendered stupid, could think of no
reply. So she burst into tears. "And my own daughter sitting silent
while that man insults her mother!" she sobbed.
Mildred sat stiff and cold.
"It'll be a week before I recover from that dinner," Presbury went on
sourly. "What a dinner! What a villainous mess! These vulgar, showy
rich! That champagne! He said it cost him six dollars a bottle, and
no doubt it did. I doubt if it ever saw France. The dealers rarely
waste genuine wine on such cattle. The wine-cellars of fine houses the
world through are the laughing-stock of connoisseurs--like their
picture-galleries and their other attempts to make money do the work of
taste. I forgot to put my pills in my bag. I'll have to hunt up an
all-night drug-store. I'd not dare go to bed without taking an
antidote for that poison."
But Presbury had not been altogether improvident. He had hoped great
things of Bill Siddall's wine-cellar--this despite an almost unbroken
series of bitter disillusionments and disappointments in experience
with those who had the wealth to buy, if they had had the taste to
select, the fine wines he loved. So, resolving to indulge himself, he
had put into his bag his pair of gout-boots.
This was a device of his own inventing, on which he prided himself. It
consisted of a pair of roomy doe-skin slippers reenforced with heavy
soles and provided with a set of three thin insoles to be used
according as the state of his toes made advisable. The cost of the
Presbury gout-boot had been, thanks to patient search for a cheap
cobbler, something under four dollars--this, when men paid shoe
specialists twenty, thirty, and even forty dollars a pair for
gout-boots that gave less comfort. The morning after the dinner at
which he had drunk to drown his chagrin and to give him courage and
tongue for sycophantry, he put on the boots. Without them it would have
been necessary to carry him from his room to a cab and from cab to
train. With them he was able to hobble to a street-car. He tried to
distract his mind from his sufferings by lashing away without ceasing
at his wife and his step-daughter.
When they were once more at home, and the mother and daughter escaped
from him, the mother said:
"I was glad to see that you put up with that wretch, and didn't answer
him back."
"Of course," said Mildred. "He's mad to be rid of me, but if I
offended him he might snatch away this chance."
"He would," said Mrs. Presbury. "I'm sure he would. But--" she
laughed viciously--"once you're married you can revenge yourself--and
me!"
"I wonder," said Mildred thoughtfully.
"Why not?" exclaimed her mother, irritated.
"I can't make Mr. Presbury out," replied the girl. "I understand why
he's helping me to this chance, but I don't understand why he isn't
making friends with me, in the hope of getting something after I'm
married."
Her mother saw the point, and was instantly agitated. "Perhaps he's
simply leading you on, intending to upset it all at the last minute."
She gritted her teeth. "Oh, what a wretch!"
Mildred was not heeding. "I must have General Siddall looked up
carefully," she went on. "It may be that he isn't rich, or that he has
another wife somewhere, or that there's some other awful reason why
marrying him would be even worse than it seems."
"Worse than it seems!" cried her mother. "How CAN you talk so, Milly!
The general seems to be an ideal husband--simply ideal! I wish _I_ had
your chance. Any sensible woman could love him."
A strange look came into the girl's face, and her mother could not
withstand her eyes. "Don't, mother," she said quietly. "Either you
take me for a fool or you are trying to show me that you have no
self-respect. I am not deceiving myself about what I'm doing."
Mrs. Presbury opened her lips to remonstrate, changed her mind, drew a
deep sigh. "It's frightful to be a woman," she said.
"To be a lady, Mr. Presbury would say," suggested Mildred.
After some discussion, they fixed upon Joseph Tilker as the best
available investigator of General Siddall. Tilker had been head clerk
for Henry Gower. He was now in for himself and had offered to look
after any legal business Mrs. Presbury might have without charging her.
He presently reported that there was not a doubt as to the wealth of
the little general. "There are all sorts of ugly stories about how he
made his money," said Tilker; "but all the great fortunes have a
scandalous history, and I doubt if Siddall's is any worse than the
others. I don't see how it well could be. Siddall has the reputation
of being a mean and cruel little tyrant. He is said to be pompous,
vain, ignorant--"
"Indeed he's not," cried Mrs. Presbury. "He's a rough diamond, but a
natural gentleman. I've met him."
"Well, he's rich enough, and that was all you asked me to find out,"
said Tilker. "But I must warn you, Mrs. Presbury, not to have any
business or intimate personal relations with him."
Mrs. Presbury congratulated herself on her wisdom in having come alone
to hear Tilker's report. She did not repeat any part of it to Mildred
except what he had said about the wealth. That she enlarged upon until
Mildred's patience gave out. She interrupted with a shrewd:
"Anything else, mamma? Anything about him personally?"
"We've got to judge him in that way for ourselves," replied Mrs.
Presbury. "You know how wickedly they lie about anyone who has
anything."
"I should like to read a full account of General Siddall," said Mildred
reflectively; "just to satisfy my curiosity."
Mrs. Presbury made no reply.
Presbury had decided that it was best to make no advance, but to wait
until they heard from Siddall. He let a week, ten days, go by; then
his impatience got the better of his shrewdness. He sought admittance
to the great man at the offices of the International Metals and
Minerals Company in Cedar Street. After being subjected to varied
indignities by sundry under-strappers, he received a message from the
general through a secretary: "The general says he'll let you know when
he's ready to take up that matter. He says he hasn't got round to it
yet." Presbury apologized courteously for his intrusion and went away,
cursing under his breath. You may be sure that he made his wife and
his stepdaughter suffer for what he had been through. Two weeks more
passed--three--a month. One morning in the mail there arrived this
note--type-written upon business paper:
JAMES PRESBURY, Esqr.: